There’s no shortage of ways to book hotel rooms online, but most
services have only the most basic information about one of the
most important factors — the quality of the room itself.

A new Sunnyvale, Calif. startup called Room 77 says that it has built a
database of more than 425,000 hotel rooms at 2,500 properties
with information like room category, square footage, bed type,
and and elevator proximity. It also taps into Google Earth to create a Room View, showing you
a simulation of what you’d see if you looked out the room window.

The results are personalized too. Room 77 says it uses an
algorithm to rank rooms based on how well they match the
preferences you’ve entered. It sounds like that’s even more
useful if you’ve got the Room 77 iPhone app — if you’re at the desk of a hotel
and they say they want to place you in a certain room, you can
check the app and it will recommend whether you should accept the
room or ask for another.

Apple

“All hotel rooms are not created equal, and we’ve built Room 77
to open up room data and give travelers more control in getting a
great room,” said founder and chairman Brad Gerstner in a press
release. “Travelers have several options that rate and review
hotels, but until now there’s nothing that breaks down hotel
rooms even though the room is a critical part of the experience.”